Forecasts about elections to the European Parliament are signalling that the “extreme” right should be improving its position while the centre-right should be holding its own, so that without picking new votes, it could still maintain its present standing. Prospects for the socialists and centre left appear to be less clear.

If I remember correctly, there is little that’s different in these forecasts to those that were prevalent for the 2019 election. On that occasion, the socialists and the centre-left were expected to lose ground. Actually, there was little change then on the previous mandate, including for the socialists, while the “extreme” right (the populists) did not do as well as was expected.

I would not be surprsed if the story is repeated this year. Still, it is deplorable that in the political profile which is likely to emerge, there are big chances that the right will once again be guaranteed to occupy the most important posts of the EU. Time after time, these are ending up under right wing control.

I wonder how the left seems to have become resigned to this state of affairs and is accepting it without too much trouble.

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EASTER WEEK

Like most activities, traditional or otherwise, which are held in Malta, Holy Week is at risk of being engulfed by the wave of commercialisation that has spread to all sectors of local endeavour. People have become too focussed on how every commemoration and every popular activity can be converted into a full-scale party.

At least a solution has been found for how religious processions held at this time can proceed without being hampered by dining tables placed in their way. I am not a religious person but I, too, did not like this development at all.

On the other hand, I doubt whether tourism can be blamed so much for the commercialised hedonism which has become a way of life for many Maltese. What is happening can be explained by much deeper factors.

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HAS COVID BEEN FORGOTTEN?

Three years or so ago, we were caught in the grip of the Covid pandemic. Across the planet, the habits and ways by which we lived changed or were radically disrupted. We spent the best part of two years trying to exit from the incubus that the pandemic put us under, even as the economic and financial strains that all countries were being subjected to could have easily triggered  a general collapse.

Today all this feels so faraway, although some routine modes of behaviour might have changed because of the pandemic. In those days, the belief was that it would bring in its wake a huge worldwide transformation in economic and social management. Extensive safegurards needed to be introduced so as to ensure in the future a suitable protection for populations.

Yet what has happened on that score? In practice, what safeguarding measures are being applied at present, in ways that all can accept and that are in effect all over the globe? Indeed, quite frequently the suspicion arises that Covid has been completely forgotten.